


between tours

by you_idjits



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 10 Spoilers, Veterans Anonymous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/you_idjits/pseuds/you_idjits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean attends a meeting of Veterans Anonymous. Featuring the Mark of Cain and reusable shopping bags.</p><p>(trigger warning for dark thoughts, more or less canon compliant with Dean's usual unhealthy headspace)</p>
            </blockquote>





	between tours

It’s dumb.

He knows it’s dumb. Right? It’s not like he’s even in Lebanon much these days. Between hunting with Sam and looking for Crowley and meeting up with Castiel and Hannah for random angelic missions, Dean doesn’t have the time for this.

It’s not a good idea.

So why is he even thinking about it?

He shifts back and forth in front of the grocery store’s bulletin board. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. He pretends to look at the other flyers hanging from blue thumbtacks. He drifts back to it.

 _Veterans Anonymous,_ it says. _Meetings every Tuesday and Thursday, Socials on Saturdays. All are welcome._

He thinks about everything he’s done, everywhere he’s been. He thinks about the guns in his car and the knife under his pillow. He thinks about the way he flinches when Cas reaches for him.

He thinks about how, three minutes ago, he stood in the deli aisle and looked at the raw meats and the fires of Hell flashed so violently behind his eyes that his knees went weak.

“Dean?” Sam asks, from somewhere far behind him, laden with reusable shopping bags. Because they’ve gotten to the point where they carry reusable shopping bags with the rifles in the trunk. Christ.

“Yeah, coming,” Dean says, and he snatches an address slip off the flyer. He tucks it between his fingers, turns on the heel of his boots, and follows Sam out.

The address burns in his pocket for days. He takes it out for laundry, smoothing it carefully on the surface of the washing machine.

The paper is pink, with unevenly clipped edges. The address is for a church in Lebanon.

There’s something ironic about the idea of Dean going to church. He thinks it has something to do with having been a demon for three months.

Yeah, about that. Dean’s been weighed down by nightmares and alcoholism and fear and shame for years. But now he has guilt on his back too. Guilt, thick and greasy and foul-tasting. He’s always been the good one, the one that talks Sam and Cas down from window ledges and final blows. But then he went catapulting off the deep end himself.

So here he is. Clawing his way back out of the guilt. Maybe he needs to talk to someone, someone who doesn’t know him for the monster he was – is.

He looks at the address as his laundry makes circles in the machine. The clothes thump rhythmically as they fall. Dean’s always liked doing laundry. Something in the mundanity of it.

Today is a Wednesday. He could go tomorrow, just to try it out. See if it’s something he could handle.

He types the address into his phone with a careful precision. He tears the paper into tiny pink flakes, so Sam won’t find it.

So the following afternoon, he visits a church in Lebanon. His heart beats faster than it does on even the worst hunts. He follows the signs in the church the way he follows footprints in the woods. He tries to ignore the cold press of a gun tucked in the back of his jeans. He is a civilian here. He is supposed to be a civilian here.

He’s a few minutes late, deliberately so, and the meeting has already started. There’s an awkward pause as he hovers in the doorway. The woman speaking falters mid-sentence.

“Is this, um,” he says.

“You’re in the right place.” A young woman with blonde hair and white skin smiles. It’s one of _those_ smiles, the kind he doesn’t see very often anymore. The kind that carries no baggage, no history.

He stares at her for a moment too long, them stumbles toward an empty chair.

“We were just starting introductions,” the woman continues. “Would you like to begin?”

That throws Dean off; his muscles tense and his heartbeat skitters. But he says, “Oh- okay, yeah. Uh, my name’s Dean.”

A dull chorus of “Hi, Dean,” chases his words.

He glances at the woman, curls his hands against his thighs. “I just finished my, uh, service. Guess I’m figuring out where to go from here.”

The woman nods. “Thank you, Dean. You’ll find many like you here. Jessie?”

Jessie, in the chair beside him, smiles. “So, I’m Jessie.”

“Hi, Jessie,” the others say. Dean follows a little late. Jessie is young, too young. His stomach churns.

“In between tours at the moment,” she says, “but most of you know that. I come every week, when I’m stateside.” She picks at the cuticle beds of her nails; some are torn and bleeding. “I don’t want to go back. Deployment’s in three weeks, and I don’t want another tour. But I know my folks need the money.”

Shit. Maybe he shouldn’t be here. Dean at least has the choice to stop hunting. This, coming here, is invasive.

Except, he has to muster the energy for every hunt. He has to clean the blood out of his clothes afterwards. Dean’s not sure he even likes the work anymore, but he keeps going because it’s safe, because it’s familiar. He doesn’t know who he is without a gun in his hands. And after everything these past few months, with Crowley, Dean feels like he has to – to make up for it, somehow. Saving people, hunting things, that’s the only way he knows.

Christ. Once, he was too young for this too. Now he’s too old.

He listens dumbly as the others introduce themselves. He doesn’t contribute again, can’t bring himself to. When the meeting adjourns, everyone breaks off into small clumps. Dean takes a cookie, but it tastes cheap, flat.

“So, Dean.” It’s a man, his age. Dean’s brain works, sluggishly, to remember his name. David, maybe.

“Hey,” Dean says. “You want a cookie?”

“I’m good, thanks. They taste like cardboard.”

“No shit,” Dean says, and they laugh. It feels kind of nice, actually. “Uh, David, right?”

“Dave.”

“’S nice to meet you.” Dean puts out a hand, gives him the sturdy _Agents Page and Plant, yes, we’re here about the recent disappearances_ handshake. “You, uh, you come here often?”

“I live in the area. You?”

“Yeah. First meeting, though.”

“I know. You’ve got that look about you.” Dave smiles, something amicable and without expectations. “Where’d you serve? Afghanistan?”

“Uh. Homefront, actually.”

“But you’ve seen active combat?”

Dean thinks about last weekend, when a demon in St. Louis threw him against a wall so hard his shoulder dislocated. “Some. You?”

“Marines, fresh out of high school. I’ve been stateside fifteen years and I’m still coming to meetings here.”

God, this is so fucked up. Dave, Jessie. The church. Dean looks at the half-eaten cookie in his hand. The Mark of Cain burns hot against his skin. He shouldn’t have come here. “I have to go,” he says. He turns, but Dave catches him on the shoulder.

“Hey,” Dave says. “You should come back sometime. It’s hard at first, believe me I know, but it gets easier. Promise.”

Dean meets his eyes. He looks kind of like Cas, really.

“Thanks, man, but I should really go.” He brushes the hand off, pushes forward to the door.

Halfway to the car and he’s already dialing, before he knows what he’s doing. Cas picks up on the third ring.

“Dean? What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Dean says. He swallows the lump in his throat. “I- Cas, if- if I needed something, would you-”

“Yes,” Cas says. “Anything.”

“But you don’t-”

“Anything.”

“Okay.” Dean takes a breath. His hand, on the phone, is trembling. Christ, maybe that meeting got to him more than he thought. “Can you, I mean, the stuff with Hannah. Can you take a couple of days off?”

A pause. “Dean, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Sam’s fine. I’m fine.” He curses. “Actually, no. I’m not fine. I don’t know. I just. Can you get to the Bunker.”

“Of course.”

“This is big. The Mark, and everything. I’m gonna need all the help I can get. I don’t know if I can do this.”

Cas says, “I’ll be there in the morning.”

He closes the phone. Puts his hands on the roof of the Impala and sucks in deep breaths.

Fifteen years from now, Dean will still be hunting. Doing the same damn things and making the same damn mistakes. Ten years ago he talked about a light at the end of the tunnel but this isn’t a tunnel, it’s a fucking theme park horror with no exit. He’s not getting out of this, he knows that now. Dave the Marine didn’t get out. Shit. Shit, this is worse than Dean thought.

But Cas is going to be there in the morning. And Sam. Dean isn’t alone in this.

They’ll figure it out. They always do. With that thought, Dean starts the long drive home.

**Author's Note:**

> this turned out darker than i intended, so i'm sorry for that. dean + ptsd has been on my mind a lot lately, especially during season 10. therefore, this.
> 
> i've been listening to a lot of folk-rock girl groups lately. music rec for this piece is [Operator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=735ABV3jqbA) by Glitterish.  
> thank you to [tasha](http://kraziiisme.tumblr.com/) for editing. ily babe
> 
> crossposted on [tumblr](http://shootingstarcas.tumblr.com/post/109348228741/between-tours-1-5k-dean-attends-a-meeting-of).


End file.
